Comics I Read

My comic has not gone black, but a lot of the internet has and I support them fully. SOPA & PIPA are a poorly thought-out bills that will have a huge impact on small business like the webcomics you enjoy on a daily basis – even ones not based in the U.S, like mine! As I Canadian, I don’t get a say in whether or not these bills pass, so it’s all up to you, American Weregeeks.

– Print and mail letters to your state’s senators and representatives, urging them not to support this. Physical mail is harder to ignore than email. It piles up. You can find representatives’ addresses here and senators’ addresses here. Remember that PIPA is a Senate bill and SOPA is a House of Representatives bill.

– Call your senators and representatives on the phone and urge them not to support the bills. See above links for phone numbers or click here to get a quick list of representatives based on where you live.

^ 8 Comments to “”

SailorVega Says:

Surprise, surprise. This is what happens when you don’t vote or vote for people who promise to give you stuff in exchange for freedom- especially when they steal from other citizens to give you shiny stuff. Those of you who are under 18 are excused, but those of you who are not and have been to busy playing with lolcats to pay attention to what our elected officials have been doing for the last six years should hang your heads in shame because those of us who do also have been calling our elected officials over all the little stealing of our freedoms.

One thing I would advise is do NOT use the standard letter they recommend. If the politicians here (I live in the UK) are anything to go by, letters that are clearly standard are ignored (as they are just seen to be one person’s/organisation’s opinion). Take the time to write your own arguments and, as the advice says, print it out and post it.

Posted January 18th, 2012 at 6:18 pm

John Says:

I appreciate your support of the anti-sopa/pipa groups, but I was hoping to see black panels today. ACTA is just as bad as SOPA/PIPA and it’s international, so even though you are Canadian, you still have the potential of great loss.

Posted January 18th, 2012 at 7:14 pm

Peter Says:

Nathan Says:

SOPA and PIPA aren’t poorly thought out… they will do exactly what the people who devised them want them to do. Piracy is a convenient scapegoat, certainly, but the objective is control, not the safety of intellectual property.

Posted January 19th, 2012 at 2:25 am

Lodrelhai Says:

Random note of interest: Lamar Smith, the author of SOPA, uses an uncredited picture from a commercial photographer as the background of his campaign website.

Other random note: Clove cigarettes are currently illegal to buy in the U.S. (though you can buy loose tobacco or herbs, whole cloves, and rolling papers to roll your own).

Actually, non-USans can get involved directly. You can contact the US Secretary of State, whose department is taking opinions from people outside the country as the US’ foreign affairs department.

We can also contact our own MPs in Canada to ask our own Foreign Affairs Minister to contact the US about our unhappiness about this extraterritorializing legislation.

Posted January 19th, 2012 at 4:36 pm

Foxfier Says:

Seems that the Senate bill only got as far as it did by lying, and when the lie came to light…poof, no support. (There were “known issues” that “would be addressed”… but they had no intention of doing that….)